INTEGRATING EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES INTO A BUSINESS CURRICULUM TOWARD ENHANCED WORKFORCE SCIENCE LITERACY

Most proposals for addressing climate change and global energy consumption rely largely on regulating and/or incentivizing businesses to effect change. Preparing a workforce to meet these challenges is not limited to training scientists but must also address the STEM education of future business leaders. Business schools are not typical venues for Earth and environmental science education. At Bentley University over 95% of undergraduate students major in business degree programs. Without declared or prospective science majors, our challenge as science faculty is to contextualize core science concepts and educate business students whose STEM higher-educational experience may be limited to two general education science electives.

Based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics, it is clear that science education for business students is critical to advance our technology-driven economy. For example: industry funds more scientific research than government, in addition to its traditional economic development activity; students majoring in business fields represent >20% of all undergraduates; innovation and technology-based companies require scientifically literate business leadership for management, finance, marketing, and strategic planning; and decisions made in technology-driven industries influence the direction of science and innovation nationally and internationally.

Funded by an NSF-CCLI grant, we have begun to transform our undergraduate, non-majors science teaching through a new trans-disciplinary, problem-based, technology-enhanced approach that integrates Earth and environmental sciences concepts with more immediate business and societal concerns. Our expectation is that business students will more effectively engage and retain essential scientific concepts when they are contextualized in courses that have immediate interdisciplinary relevance and application.

In a summer, 2010, two-week workshop, six Bentley faculty members developed several new problem-based, technology-enhanced laboratory modules for use in a range of Earth and environmental science courses. We describe several of these modules, explain how they contextualize scientific concepts for business students, and outline our plan to assess student learning as the project advances.